Since Nathan Asked… The Longest War

So, here’s my latest crazy idea. Dothraki/War Crest theme running The Long Voyage. I’ve basically filled the locations with reducers, initiative, influence, and some draw. I’ve tossed Summer in to help with income and to power Myrish Villa (the best non-Limited in-House reducer, provided you can keep it Summer). My Limited card count is a […]

So, here’s my latest crazy idea. Dothraki/War Crest theme running The Long Voyage. I’ve basically filled the locations with reducers, initiative, influence, and some draw. I’ve tossed Summer in to help with income and to power Myrish Villa (the best non-Limited in-House reducer, provided you can keep it Summer). My Limited card count is a little higher than normal but it’s compensated by such a large deck.

Draw is… interesting. You get three every turn, so that’s nice, but the random-factor has a larger impact. If you get a bad shuffle, your game is going to go south quickly. My setups are usually pretty decent due to the number of low cost characters and very low count of non-setup cards (only 13 out of 85… pretty decent ratio overall).

The interesting thing about the Long Voyage is with Meraxes in play, you’re almost at cap every single turn. Get one Jhogo working and you’ve capped yourself. Top decking is rarely an issue with The Long Voyage. Being able to get three cards in hand with a decent shuffle almost always nets a card you can use.

I’m still not certain I need all of the Initiative I have in there. I’ve considered dropping the Kingsroad’s completely and adding in Womb of the World and Vaes Dothrak, or maybe even Ocean Road.

I also tried to run the Fighting Pits with weapon attachments, but the attachments actually slowed the deck down and had a detrimental effect on setup. Also, you either loaded up on attachments or had wasted Fighting Pits because they had nothing to stand. So, then you could add Hall of Dragons… and the rabbit trail kept meandering. So, this is what I came up with.

The strategy is pretty straightforward… keep putting characters in play and kill stuff. I tried to fit The Price of War in for location control, but I needed some burn and the recursion from To Be a Dragon has come in handy. If I get a Black Raven in setup, I’ll drop Lineage and Legacy first turn rather than the Raven plot.

Dothraki/War Crest was also my first choice with TLV. I’m a big fan of the Disgruntled Mercenary. It’s a great way to always have a cheap warcrest in your first challenge each phase – and why initiative is important.

At Days of Ice and Fire last year, a Warcrest/Dothraki deck came in second place. (complord is the user’s name on cardgamedb.com – his deck is listed there somewhere). It was a good deck, expertly piloted. I remember seeing the power of those Mercenaries up front – they would up the claim with the phalanx, help trigger Price of War, etc. They more than held their own for a zero cost guy.

Yes, actually, I used the Days of Ice & Fire deck as inspiration for the First Tilt: Expanding House Targaryen article. I felt like Dothraki/War Crest was way underplayed at the time and the 2nd place win came in right while I was drafting the article – so it was perfect timing.

Thanks for indulging me, Larry. I certainly like the deck. I agree with Jason that Disgruntled Mercenary should have a place in the deck at 3x. They are just so good at everything he mentioned.

I’m with you in that I don’t think the KR Fiefdom is needed. It doesn’t really do much other than give the initiative boost for BOI and could pay for the occasional LL. if you want an initiative boost you could just go with Overzealous Scout. Those aren’t terrible and would be another INT icon.

I don’t know that Long Lances are the best choice for a restricted card here. Don’t get me wrong, they are fantastic, but I would probably go with Fear of Winter or even Narrow Escape before LL.

Anyhoo… Disgruntled Merc will definitely get fit into the deck. Long Lances. Hmmm. With Ambush from the Plains and To Be a Dragon, they’ve created so much synergy in my games to get off the challenges I need and then stand my dudes back up ready for defense, or, if I lose Init, defend and then stand them back up for attack.

Narrow Escape has potential, but that’s my meta influencing me. Most of them tend to play out most of their hand and so discarding a card or two to cancel it doesn’t seem to bother them. Competitively, Narrow Escape has a better chance. But… oh I love LL.

Ah… The Power of Arms. I’ve been very underwhelmed in practice with that plot. I decided to go with Men of Pride instead. More gold, less initiative, but there are a lot of beefy non-uniques with Stealth and Deadly and that’s proven to be somewhat of a boon (yes, it nukes mine as well).

With such a large deck, I felt two resets were really important. There’s a strong possibility of a slow start if I get a bad draw. being able to reset twice provides me a little breathing room. Plus, the psychology of the second reset is pretty huge. Most players see one reset and think they’re safe. Now that two resets are becoming more popular, that’s not as much the case.

I think what I’m going to try next though is a City stack. I’ve had such good luck with that in my Dragon deck I think it might work even better here. Exercising some control will also help me if I get a slow start.